The United States power grid has more blackouts than any
other country in the developed world, according to new data that spotlights the
country’s aging and unreliable electric system. The data by the Department of
Energy (DOE) and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)
shows that Americans face more power grid failures lasting at least an hour
than residents of other developed nations - and it’s getting worse.

Going back three decades, the United States grid loses power
285 percent more often than it did in 1984, when record keeping began. The power
outages cost businesses in the United States as much as $150 billion per year,
according to the Department of Energy.

The power grid is our most antiquated and vulnerable piece
of infrastructure. The entire system is teetering on the brink of failure. The
grid is often called America’s glass jaw because of the nation’s reliability on
it and also due to its many weaknesses; such as the possibility for a domino
effect to occur because of the way the system is interconnected.

There are about 5,800 power plants and 450,000 miles of
high-voltage transmission lines in the US, many of them decades old and a large
portion of them connected to one another.

The famous Northeast Blackout of 2003 began with a tree limb
falling in Ohio. The outage caused a chain reaction resulting in 50 million
people losing power, including residents as far away as New York City and parts
of Canada.

2

The electric system has improved some since the blackout of
2003, but not nearly enough. In early 2014, the American Society of Civil
Engineers (ASCE) gave the power grid a grade of D+ when it evaluated the system
for security lapses and other vulnerabilities. The D+ grade meant that the grid
was in “poor to fair condition and mostly below standard, with many elements
approaching the end of their service life.”

The report also maintained that a “large portion of the
system exhibits significant deterioration” with a “strong risk of failure.”

An excerpt from the
American Society of Civil Engineers report reads:

“America relies on an
aging electrical grid and pipeline distribution systems, some of which
originated in the 1880s. Investment in power transmission has increased since
2005, but ongoing permitting issues, weather events, and limited maintenance
have contributed to an increasing number of failures and power interruptions.
While demand for electricity has remained level, the availability of energy in
the form of electricity, natural gas, and oil will become a greater challenge
after 2020 as the population increases. Although about 17,000 miles of
additional high-voltage transmission lines and significant oil and gas
pipelines are planned over the next five years, permitting and siting issues
threaten their completion. The electric grid in the United States consists of a
system of interconnected power generation, transmission facilities, and
distribution facilities.”

The ASCE report card also stated that new gas-fired and
renewable generation issues increase the need to add new transmission lines.
Antiquated power grid equipment has reportedly prompted even more intermittent
power outages in recent years. The power grid is more vulnerable to
cyber-attacks than ever before, with a host of energy experts citing the aging
electrical system as the primary culprit.

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